These Gentle Wounds

by Helene Dunbar

  When I stand up, my head swims a little and I have to grab onto the table to steady myself. “What are you so pissed about?” I ask.

  “You really don’t get it, do you?” He scowls.

  Ms. DeSilva sighs and sits down. “Gordie, I think you and I need to talk.”

  “Sure.” I pull out a chair and sit down. Now that my father is gone, all of this is much, much easier. I just wish Kevin would calm down before he gets into trouble.

  “Do you have these … episodes … often?” she asks.

  I exhale. I don’t talk about spinning. Ever. And this wasn’t really a spin, it was … I don’t know what it was. Escape, maybe.

  “I … it depends … some lately, but … ” I fold my arms tight over my chest. I’m okay. He’s gone and I’m okay.

  “Have you told anyone? Jim? Or the counselors at school?”

  “Jim … I guess he knows, but … why does it matter?”

  “It matters, you idiot, because your psycho father is going to dump you in some hospital and throw away the key after that performance.” Kevin is raging now. He’s charging up and down the room, looking like he wants to beat the hell out of me.

  “You said that I should just listen to him,” I whisper.

  Kevin gets right in my face. “Did you hear one word he said? Did you?”

  “No,” I admit. “But … ”

  He slaps the table and all of Ms. DeSilva’s papers jump. I do too.

  “Okay, let’s all take a deep breath,” Ms. DeSilva says. But she doesn’t get that I’m not breathing. I’m trying, but it’s like something is sitting on my chest and pushing the air out of me. My hand is going nuts and I let it. I don’t care anymore if she knows. I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong. And if it’s what made my father leave, I’m not even sure I care.

  “Kevin, do you mind giving us a few minutes?” Ms. DeSilva exchanges a look with him. My brother glares at me like he wants to break me in two and storms out.

  The air in the room settles once he’s gone and Ms. DeSilva takes a deep breath, sounding like she’s trying to suck it all up.

  “Okay, Gordie, can we start from the beginning?” she asks, only I’m not sure which beginning she means. Does she mean today? Or with the first awful thing I can remember my father doing? Or with The Night Before?

  “The beginning?”

  She nods. “I need you to help me. You need to tell me what’s going on so that we can figure out where to go from here.”

  I don’t want to talk about anything, not even with her, but it feels like the words are pushing against my lips; if I start talking, I might not be able to stop and that scares me so much I think I might be shaking, but I’m not sure.

  I push my sleeve against my mouth, but that doesn’t help and the words pour out of me like rapids around the soft cloth.

  I explain to her about the spins. I tell her about the memories. I tell her everything I can think of, except for The Night Before. She nods and takes notes.

  I try to not think about how everything I’m telling her is being committed to paper.

  “You talked to some counselors, right? I have notes here that the school arranged sessions for you?”

  I try to nod and shrug at the same time. “They didn’t get it,” I say, feeling like a total loser. “I tried.”

  I must look like crap, because she moves over and puts her hand on my arm.

  “No one is saying you didn’t try. It’s okay. Just tell me what happened.”

  “They … ” I think back and try to let some of the memories in without letting the rest overwhelm me. “They gave me a bunch of drugs and … I couldn’t study or play hockey. And then Jim talked to them, or Mr. Brooks, or someone, I guess, because they stopped. I … I got used to it, I think.”

  I glance down. My watch is stalled. Flashing 0:00:00 over and over and over again.

  “Am I in trouble?” I ask her.

  She squeezes my arm and shares a grim smile. “No. You aren’t. I promise. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  I think back. “I didn’t want you to be mad at me,” I say, feeling like I’m ten again. “I knew you wanted me to talk to them.”

  She lets out a huff of air. “It was never that I wanted you to talk to them. It’s that I wanted you to talk to someone who could help you deal with everything that was going on. I still want that.”

  My muscles tighten and I know I’m on the edge of going into full panic mode. She puts her hand on the back of my neck and says, “Hey, it’s okay. I’m not going to force you into anything. Just understand that there are other doctors and other methods and if you ever change your mind, you just need to let me know. Okay?”

  My teeth are clenched even though her words should make me relax.

  Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

  She stares at me and waits for me to calm down. She doesn’t realize she could be waiting for years.

  “How often do these spins happen?”

  It’s kind of like asking someone how often they blink or how often they’re hungry. The spins are just there. They’re just me.

  “Sometimes.” It’s only been for a couple of weeks this time, but it’s hard to think back to when I didn’t seem to either be spinning or coming out of a spin, so I grab at the only thing I can.

  “When I found the letter, it got worse.” My hand shakes hard. I close my eyes. There’s silence and then I hear her gathering her notes together.

  “Okay,” she says softly. “Are you ready to go get your brother and head home?”

  I nod. I wish we could teleport there and I didn’t have to deal with Kevin until he calmed down. But one question is beating itself against the walls of my head and as we get to the doorway, I have to stop to let it out.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course,” she says as she turns back around.

  “Why?”

  She looks puzzled, so I give it another go. “I mean, why did he … ”

  “People have different ways of dealing with grief,” she says before I finish. “I guess he couldn’t handle losing your mother and your sisters and brother.”

  At first I’m confused, because I don’t think that has anything to do with the question in my head. Then I realize that she only sees the outside of my father—smiling with those sharp teeth. She doesn’t know what he’s really like, so, of course, the question she’s answering is “Why did he leave?” not “What reason could he possibly have to come back?”

  I can’t take talking about this anymore, so I shut up and follow her out the door with my stomach tying itself in knots.

  It doesn’t take long to find Kevin pacing in front of Ms. DeSilva’s office, his hands still clenched like a boxer’s. I nudge by him and go into her office to grab my backpack as they exchange a few words I don’t catch.

  Kevin and I don’t talk until we’re halfway home. I don’t need to hear his words to know he’s still pissed at me. The air in the car shimmers with his anger.

  “Kev … ” I start, but really I don’t know what to say.

  It doesn’t matter, because his hands tighten on the steering wheel and he cuts me off. “Not now. Okay, Gordie? Not now.”

  I lean my head against the window. Someday he’s going to get mad at me and leave and I’m going to be completely alone, just a freak who was meant to die but didn’t.

  Kevin doesn’t say a word until we’re out of the car. He comes around to where I’m standing, leaning against the door and massaging my hand. He looks at the ground, not at me. “Sorry I got so mad back there.”

  His apology hangs in the air between us. I can see its furling edges as it spins over and over. I want to reach out and touch it. I want to hold it in my hand. Put it in my pocket. Keep it.

  He still looks angry, though. He looks right into my eyes, right through me, an
d crosses his arms and swallows so loud I can hear it. “It’s silly, but … I’m scared too,” he says. “Of him, I mean.”

  When I was really little, I was afraid of lightning. Instead of going to Mom’s room—we never knew what shape she’d be in—I’d go to Kevin’s and climb onto the foot of his bed. At some point he’d wake up and know I was there. We’d pull ourselves up to the windows and watch the storm together. Kevin isn’t scared of anything. Never was. When I was little, and with him, I never was either.

  All I can do is stare back.

  His words circle around and make me dizzy.

  When I’m freaking out, Kevin always knows what to do to help, but this is the first time that I’m the one trying to help. I don’t know if I know how.

  I rest my hands on his arms, which are still crossed tight. I will him to be okay. I make silent promises to be nicer to Jim, to eat whatever Kevin cooks, to ace my next test. But it doesn’t matter. His eyes look shiny, which makes my stomach feel like it’s cracking in two.

  Something wet hits my hand. I think I’m bleeding until I reach up to my eyes and find that, for the first time in five years, I’m crying.

  Thirteen

  I stumble backward and lower myself down to the concrete step. The air feels thin in my lungs. I don’t want Kevin to hate me, but I can’t stand the thought of him being scared. There’s so little I have to give him, but I have this: the truth. Maybe that’s enough to make him realize that there’s nothing silly about being afraid of my father. Nothing at all.

  I take a deep breath, clench my hands tight and look my brother in the eye. “He had a knife,” I say. And then I swear him to silence and tell him everything.

  I’m ten, and I’m walking home from hockey practice without Kevin because Jim picked him up from school. I’m not really alone, though, because there are two other guys on my block who are on my team so we walk together, swinging our backpacks, joking around, pretending we’re still at the rink.

  We get to my house first. My father’s car is in the driveway. I’m not sure when he was home last, but it’s been a while. I wave to the guys and slowly walk up the steps, afraid of what I might find. Before I even open the front door I can hear the twins crying. Sophie and Jason are a pain because they always set each other off. They should both be sleeping by now. I wonder if Mom remembered to feed them.

  I try the door but it’s locked, so I pull the key out of my backpack. Just as I’m about to unlock the door, I hear a loud crash. Crashing isn’t unusual at our house. Sometimes it’s the kids just being kids. Sometimes it’s Mom and Dad just being Mom and Dad.

  I push open the door. I can’t tell what’s crashed, but it doesn’t matter because what I see is Dad waving a knife around. Kayla is huddled in a corner and Mom is on the couch crying. The twins are in their playpen screaming their heads off.

  I freeze in the doorway. I want to run to Mom. I’m not close to the kids, but I want to pull Kayla farther away from Dad. He’s tall and the knife is the biggest one we have; the one we use to cut through chicken bones and stuff.

  When he sees me, he doesn’t put the knife down. He looks at me like everything is normal and says my name.

  I move over to Mom and she wraps her arms around me. She’s shaking and crying. Her tears wash over me like a stream.

  “Dad?” I think that maybe this is a joke or some grown-up game I don’t know how to play.

  “I’m moving to California,” he says with a puff of air that smells like smoke and beer. “You want to come with me, right? You and maybe your sister here?” He thrusts the knife toward the corner where Kayla is looking up at me, terrified.

  I know where California is because we had to memorize the map in geography class. It’s about a million miles away from here. And I’m not sure what he means about “you and maybe your sister.”

  “Mom?” I’m hoping she’s going to explain things. “Are we moving?”

  Dad laughs and says, “No, not her. Just you and me. And maybe Kayla. What do you think, Gordie? Do you think she’s going to grow up to be something or just end up like your mother?”

  “I don’t want to move,” I whisper. I know it isn’t what he wants me to say, but I can’t help it. I start crying too. I can’t imagine moving away from Mom and Kevin and even the twins. I’m just getting good at hockey and our team really has a chance this year. I don’t know if they even play hockey in California.

  “See?” he says, his words slurring as he stabs the knife over and over into the soft rail of the playpen. “See, son, this is why I need to get you out of here. You’re worse than a little girl. We need to toughen you up or you’re never going to make it in the NHL.”

  Hockey? This is about hockey? I’d gladly give up hockey if it means he would go away and leave us alone.

  “No,” I say, stamping my foot. “I’m not going. I’m not leaving Mom and Kevin.”

  Lightning fast, he puts the knife down, walks over, and backhands me across the face. My head hits the back of the couch. It stings even worse than when I’ve been checked really hard during a game. I start crying harder, not only from the pain but because, even though I don’t like him much, he’s my dad and I don’t want him to want to hit me.

  For all the times I’ve seen him wale on Kevin, he’s never touched me. He’s yelled and threatened, but he’s saved his slaps and punches for my brother. I’ve spent a lot of time almost wishing

  he’d hit me instead. Kevin is my best friend and he protects me from the bigger kids at school. As much as I hate the pain, it’s even harder to watch Kevin struggle to be strong.

  “Oh, Kevin,” he says in a mocking voice. “Your bastard brother has nothing to do with this.”

  I wipe my tears away on my shirt sleeve and wrap my arms around myself to keep from running up and hitting him. I hate him so much. Why couldn’t he just leave and stay away? Why does he have to keep coming back and making Mom cry?

  I’ve seen my parents fight before. Big, scary, loud fights with things getting smashed and broken. But never like this. Never with knives. And no one has ever talked about splitting us up.

  Mom pulls me back up and hugs me. I can smell her fear, a mingling of perfume, smoke from his cigarette, and some sort of alcohol. She whispers into my hair, “Honey, take Kayla and go up to your room.”

  I look at her to make sure she’s serious. Part of me thinks I should stay down here to try to protect her, but the rest of me wants to run like hell. She’s pointing upstairs, saying, “Go on now,” so I grab Kayla’s hand and drag her up.

  I walk backward up the stairs to make sure he doesn’t move. All the time, his eyes cut through me like that knife would have.

  I sit down on the floor and hold Kayla in my lap. I slap my headphones on and play the loudest music I can find. It’s something of Kevin’s—I don’t even know what it is, but it’s angry with lots of drums and bass, not like what I usually listen to.

  I can feel my parents’ fight rumbling through the floor.

  Kayla falls asleep. I sit there for the rest of the night until I crash too, playing the angry music over and over and over on repeat until it’s burnt into my brain, blocking out whatever is happening downstairs.

  Here’s what I don’t do:

  I don’t call Kevin.

  I don’t call the police.

  I don’t climb out the window and go for help.

  I sit there and listen to music while they terrorize and threaten each other.

  I fall asleep while Mom decides that killing us and herself is a better idea than letting him have us. Have me. Because I was the one he wanted the whole the time.

  They all died to save me from him. And all I did was listen to music.

  Fourteen

  I can’t figure out if our room is too hot or too cold, too quiet or too loud. All I know is I’m still awake, and restless, and it looks like I�
�m going to stay that way.

  I don’t want to wake Kevin, so I wander down to the kitchen. I also don’t want food, but I don’t know where else to go. I just sit at the table and stare at the wall. It feels strange for Kevin to know about The Night Before—to have him know what I did and to know he doesn’t hate me for it. It feels strange not to be afraid of that anymore.

  When I told him, all he did was put his arm around my neck and pull me toward him. Then he smacked my head and told me I was an idiot for thinking he’d be upset with me for hiding upstairs while it was all going on. He reminded me that I’m supposed to trust him—I’d broken our pact. Again. And as punishment, I needed to wash his car. I think about going out to do that now, but it seems like a silly thing to do in the middle of the night.

  I sit in the kitchen so long I lose track of time.

  The light snaps on.

  “Hey, kid.” Jim opens the fridge and pours himself a glass of milk. He gestures with the carton, but I shake my head.

  As he puts it back in the fridge, he says, “Heard you’d like to go camping on Saturday?”

  I shrug. With everything else going on, I’d almost forgotten about it.

  “With that boy on your hockey team, right?” Jim is smiling, but all of the blood in my body rushes to my cheeks. I think about telling him that Sarah is the real reason I want to go, and that I’m not really friends with Luke, and that I know we’re both thinking it’s the first time in five years I’ve considered doing something with a kid from school, but all I do is nod.

  “It sounds like fun.”

  I never seriously thought I’d be going, so I didn’t prepare myself for thinking about things like what I need to bring, how it all works, and how I’m going to hold it together around Sarah for two whole days without her thinking I’m some sort of loser.

  “Sorry I wasn’t there today,” Jim says as he sits down across from me. “Sorry it had to happen this way at all.”

  “Yeah,” is all I can say. Nothing would have been different if he’d been there. But it’s kind of cool that he thinks he should have been.